International
disputes: annual ministerial meetings under the Organization of American States-initiated Agreement on the Framework for Negotiations and Confidence Building Measures continue to address Guatemalan land and maritime claims in Belize and the Caribbean Sea; Guatemala persists in its territorial claim to half of Belize, but agrees to Line of Adjacency to keep Guatemalan squatters out of Belize's forested interior; Mexico must deal with thousands of impoverished Guatemalans and other Central Americans who cross the porous border looking for work in Mexico and the United States.

Geography

The northernmost of the Central American
nations, Guatemala is the size of Tennessee. Its neighbors are Mexico on
the north and west, and Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador on the east. The
country consists of three main regions—the cool highlands with the
heaviest population, the tropical area along the Pacific and Caribbean
coasts, and the tropical jungle in the northern lowlands (known as the
Petén).

Government

Constitutional democratic republic.

History

Once the site of the impressive ancient Mayan
civilization, Guatemala was conquered by Spanish conquistador Pedro de
Alvarado in 1524 and became a republic in 1839 after the United Provinces
of Central America collapsed. From 1898 to 1920, dictator Manuel Estrada
Cabrera ran the country, and from 1931 to 1944, Gen. Jorge Ubico Castaneda
served as strongman.

Protracted Civil War Results in Huge Number of Civilian Deaths

After Ubico's overthrow in 1944 by the “October
Revolutionaries,” a group of left-leaning students and professionals,
liberal-democratic coalitions led by Juan José Arévalo (1945–1951) and
Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán (1951–1954) instituted social and political reforms
that strengthened the peasantry and urban workers at the expense of the
military and big landowners, like the U.S.-owned United Fruit Company.
With covert U.S. backing, Col. Carlos Castillo Armas led a coup in 1954,
and Arbenz took refuge in Mexico. A series of repressive regimes followed,
and by 1960 the country was plunged into a civil war between military
governments, right-wing vigilante groups, and leftist rebels that would
last 36 years, the longest civil war in Latin American history. Death
squads murdered an estimated 50,000 leftists and political opponents
during the 1970s. In 1977, the U.S. cut off military aid to the country
because of its egregious human rights abuses. The indigenous Mayan Indians
were singled out for special brutality by the right-wing death squads. By
the end of the war, 200,000 citizens were dead.

A succession of military juntas dominated during
the civil war, until a new constitution was passed and civilian Marco
Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo was elected and took office in 1986. He was
followed by Jorge Serrano Elías in 1991. In 1993, Serrano moved to
dissolve Congress and the supreme court and suspend constitutional rights,
but the military deposed Serrano and allowed the inauguration of Ramiro de
Leon Carpio, the former attorney general for human rights. A peace
agreement was finally signed in Dec. 1996 by President Álvaro Arzú
Irigoyen.

Army Blamed for Most of the Abuses in Civil War

In 1999, a Guatemalan truth commission blamed
the army for 93% of the atrocities and the rebels (the Guatemalan National
Revolutionary Unit) for 3%. The former guerrillas apologized for their
crimes, and President Clinton apologized for U.S. support of the
right-wing military governments. The army has not acknowledged its guilt.
Alfonso Portillo Cabrera, closely associated with the former dictatorship
of Efrain Rios Montt (1982–1983), became president in Jan. 2000. In Aug.
2000, Portillo apologized for the former government's human rights abuses
and pledged to prosecute those responsible and compensate victims.

Guatemala Signs Several Trade Agreements

To stimulate the economy, Guatemala, along with
El Salvador and Honduras, signed a free trade agreement with Mexico in
June 2000. In Aug. 2001, plans for tax increases prompted widespread, and
often violent, protests.

In July 2003, the country's highest court ruled
that former coup leader and military dictator Rios Montt, responsible for
the massacre of tens of thousands of civilians during the civil war, was
eligible to run for president in November. The ruling conflicted with the
constitution, which bans anyone who seized power in a coup from running
for the presidency. But in November, Rios Montt was soundly defeated by
two candidates, conservative Oscar Berger and center-leftist Alvaro Colom.
In the runoff election in December, Berger was elected president.

In 2005, the government ratified a free-trade
agreement (CAFTA) with the U.S.

Three Salvadoran politicians, all members of the
Central American Parliament, and their driver were found murdered on a
road near Guatemala City in Feb. 2007. Four Guatemalan police officers
were arrested in connection with the murders and later shot dead in their
prison cells. Three other officers were named as suspects. Guatemala's
security minister, the national police chief, and the director of the
country's prisons all resigned in the scandal.

Fourteen candidates, including 2002 Nobel Peace
Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú, competed in the first round of presidential
elections in September 2007. Otto Pérez Molina, a former general, and
businessman Álvaro Colom advanced to the second round. After a vitriolic campaign, Álvaro Colom, of the
National Unity for Hope party, defeated Otto Pérez Molina in the
presidential election on November 4, 2007, 52% to 47%.

Pérez Molina Elected President On His Second Try

After coming in second in 2007, Otto Pérez Molina was elected president in November 2011, receiving 53.7% of the vote. Pérez Molina beat Manuel Baldizón, a young businessman who was running as a fresh, populist alternative. The leader of the right-wing Patriot Party, Pérez Molina's election was a sign that voters desired change, going against their current centre-left government.

Even though Pérez Molina won the 2011 election, he was seen as a divisive figure during his campaign. A former general, Pérez Molina played a prominent role during the country's civil war. In July 2011, Waqib Kej, a Guatemalan indigenous organization, sent a letter to the United Nations accusing Pérez Molina of genocide and torture in 1982, during the civil war. Some voters feared him for his role in the war and because of the allegations against him. Others did not want the reminder of the country's 1960–96 civil war, in which there were mass murders and approximately 200,000 people died. The first ex-soldier elected since democracy was restored in 1986, Pérez Molina vowed to fight hard against organized crime. This was a huge selling point with some voters because Guatemala has one of the highest murder rates in the world.

7.4 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Guatemala

On November 7, 2012, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake rocks Guatemala. At least 48 people were killed. With at least 150 seriously injured and 23 people missing, government officials said the death toll would likely rise. Houses were destroyed. Schools, roads, and government buildings were damaged. When a prison wall collapsed, 98 inmates had to be transferred to another jail. At a news conference, President Molina said, "This is the largest earthquake we have had since the one in 1976."

San Marcos, near the border of Mexico, was the hardest hit. Tremors from the earthquake were felt as far as Mexico City and San Salvador. President Molina placed the San Marcos area under a high disaster alert and traveled there to see the damage.

Court Throws Out Montt's Genocide Conviction

On May 20, 2013, the highest court in Guatemala overturned the genocide conviction of General Efraín Ríos Montt. The ruling was a legal victory for Montt, the former dictator, and a defeat for human rights advocates who saw the original conviction as a positive sign that the country's courts would punish Guatemala's most powerful for illegal activity.

Montt had been in prison since a three-panel tribunal found him guilty on May 10, 2013. He had been found guilty as commander in chief for several rapes and massacres as well as the displacement of the Maya-Ixil community while he ruled in 1982 and 1983. He had been sentenced to 80 years in prison, but the latest ruling meant he would return to house arrest. Montt had been under house arrest since January 2012 when the case against him started.